In anticipation of tomorrow’s live group drawing on Twitter, I crunched some numbers about this year’s Extreme Memory Tournament competitors.
First, here's a system breakdown (ie. what % of Extremers use system X for event Y). I made some simplifications. For instance, not everyone using a 3-digit system places the same number of image per locus. As it’s hard to tell, I also didn’t include systems for images or names. A lot of people see 1 word per click as well, so I couldn’t tell how many he or she places per locus. Finally, I wasn’t sure about everyone, so I left some blanks. It’s not perfect, but through a combination of personal knowledge and combing through YouTube videos of the qualifying, I was able to track down most of the information. Enjoy!
Both 2-card and 3-digit systems were oddities not too long ago, but it looks like they're becoming the norms! I also find the words system breakdown interesting, and I'll blog more about that soon. For me, it's always been a struggle deciding the number of images I want to use per locus. I tend to use 3, but it looks like 2 is taking a foothold.
I also thought it’d be interesting to see how this year’s crop fit into the World Memory Sports Council’s world rankings. Check it out! Looking at this graph made me think: where's the rest of the top 10? I realized, however, that the reason the graph is so spread out comes back to the weirdness of the WMSC ranking system. A sizeable chunk of the top 50 consists of competitors who've been out of the game for years. The only active top tenner not competing is Mongolian Sengesamdan Ulziikhutag (although Wang Feng hasn't lost too much of his card speed; check him out battling Simon Reinhard on the "The Brain" here). Also, there aren't any complete newcomers, as the 2 unranked competitors are Lance Tschirhart and myself. We've only competed thus far in USA Memory Championships, hence no rankings.
Lastly, here are the average scores of XMT competitors during qualifying. The result that jumps out at me here is the names average. Last year, Simon Reinhard set the record at 23, and now the average competitor is hitting 22? I'm guessing a major factor was the in-competition pressure. Anyway, how do you stack up?